Mistakes in fiction that bug you

[Mayerling]

Jeff, I've a feeling that the line between slander and libel relates to permanence : books and newspapers are considered more permanent than speech. But I vaguely remember lawyers arguing over the case of a man who taught his parrot to repeat "Mr X is a crook." Was this quasi-permanence?

I'm interested in what one can say about a person's past. For instance, if Mr A murders someone at age 21, then it would seem OK to call him a murderer 40 years later. But what if Mr A stole a bar of chocolate at age 21? Calling him a thief 40 years later seems to imply that he's been stealing recently or is likely to do so.

Hi Robert,

Permanence may result as an aftereffect but I can't see it as totally involved as one of the elements. It is the hurt the words cause, and the effect of them on the victim of those words. As for the parrot case, I could not say. Maybe it was really for the birds?

If the individual only stole a chocolate bar at age 21, I doubt it would merit being raised by the prosecution in it's case. If, however, the defendant had a history of having an insane desire to eat chocolate, and the murder victim was killed trying to protect his newspaper candy stall, it might have some relevance there.* If however, the victim was killed by somebody stealing his Vermeer or Van Gogh from his home, I don't think bringing up defendant's sweet tooth crime of four decades earlier makes sense.

*Likewise if there was a partial hand print covered in chocolate syrup.

Jeff

[Robert]

Hi Jeff

I guess I was really thinking of libel/slander. E,g. Mr A and Mr B are competing for promotion. Mr A either publicly alleges or spreads a rumour that Mr B is a thief. Mr B did steal a chocolate bar 40 years before. I would say that the import of the word 'thief' is misleading (as long as Mr B hasn't stolen anything since).

Maybe the difference between spoken and written defamation, in the days before such things as recorded TV shows at least, was that once something is in print, it's pretty hard to remove it. Thus the hurt or injury suffered by the defamed party may re-occur indefinitely. Words on the other hand may float away on the breeze.

[Mayerling]

How about the malevolently evil villain, who has managed to skillfully cover up his tracks from all but one or two characters, so when he can kill them he should get away with it (in short, an apparently "perfect crime") but instead has to spend valuable time telling the two why he committed the crimes or how he committed them without being suspected, thus giving the two an undeserved chance to escape the death he led them to, or (far worse) he has given time for Chief Inspector Stumbly to finally put two and two together and show up with his men in time!

What gets me about this is how many crimes, when solved, do not include motive - the killer refuses to divulge it (possibly from embarrassment, if it was due to some crazy sex problem he doesn't want known). Instead we hear exposition scenes in crime or mystery stories again, and again, and again which just don't deserve to be in there (unless the detective it explaining it, like Holmes or Poirot or Miss Marple).

In one of his films, Mike Meyers lampooned this thing when Dr. Doom (is that his name - I'm not sure) has Austin Powers in a well constructed death trap, like those in the James Bond films, and his son wants to get his own gun and just kill Powers (and thus, end of problem). Looking disapprovingly the bad Doctor shakes his head at his offspring and says, "You just don't get it!"

Jeff

[Robert]

Well, in all the Batman stories the Joker/Riddler//Penguin were always devising fiendish and gruesome deaths for the heroes, but funnily enough never wanted to actually witness these deaths, thus giving the Dynamic Duo a chance to escape.

I'm always amused when people, especially the handsome heroes, are punched in the face but never develop bruises, black eyes or swollen jaws.

Also I think that the US police have a funny way with knocking on people's doors. If the door isn't opened in five seconds, they immediately assume that the person inside is either in some sort of trouble, or is a crook who is going to make a fight of it. The idea that there might be no one at home, or that the person they want might be on the toilet, etc, never seems to occur to them.

[GUT]

Libel v Slander

Libel is written (yep even here on the 'net).

Slander is spoken.

[GUT]

I always say to the villain, Just Kill him.

But I guess that shortens the story too much.

[Robert]

This site seems to take permanence as the criterion. However, I don't know what things were like before the 2013 act nor do I know the situation abroad :

https://www.dpsa.uk/a-guide-to-media-law/defamation/

[GUT]

This site seems to take permanence as the criterion. However, I don't know what things were like before the 2013 act nor do I know the situation abroad :

https://www.dpsa.uk/a-guide-to-media-law/defamation/

From that article:

The difference between libel and slander

Defamation is the generic term for libel and slander. Where the defamation is in writing or in some other permanent form it is a libel. Where it is spoken or in some other temporary form it is a slander.

[GUT]

Just to clarify:

If I say to Jeff, (or even a room full of people) "Robert is a thief" that is potentially slander.

If I go on TV and say the same thing it is potentially libel (because of the permanence)

[Robert]

That's the very thing I've been saying, GUT : permanence is the criterion, not writing. Writing is part of permanence, but not all of it.

[Mayerling]

Thanks GUT about explaining how more significant permanence is to libel and slander than I realized.

There is a technical thing I can't stand in most television detective shows - due to the way the screen writers are trained by long experience, all these shows end with "mystery solved" within one sixty minute (or less) episode. We all know it more time than that, and even the writers on a good show like Law & Order make us realize days are passing during the discovery-detective work and again in the courtroom maneuvers and clash. But it usually ends within one sixty minute episode. There have been short-lived experiments of a show extended for a full season on one case, but those programs never find a large enough audience.

Part of the problem is attention spans. In the age of the remote control channel surfing, and in terms of the computer the brief bits on many You-Tube videos (although You Tube includes full episodes too) people don't have the stamina to have a long drawn out wait-and-see. The best is a mini-series, like some of the "Miss Marple" or "Hercule Poirot" stories in two episodes (or three sometimes). But even these cut bits out. So one has to seek out a published copy of the story, which enables the reader (if confused on a point) to turn back easily to where the incident involved first occurred and then understand it.

Tied to this is the use of all sorts of questionable detective devices and processes that really have not been developed as the program hints (like super DNA comparison finding from really minimal amounts of material left at the crime scene). DNA was a discovery in the early 1960s, and so we are only within half a century of Watson and Crick's findings. We haven't gotten as far as some of these shows suggest - and probably won't for another half century. And keep in mind, every new discovery used by the police (like fingerprinting) is met with some well-intended skepticism at first. It has to prove itself. Not so on television shows.

Jeff

[GUT]

That's the very thing I've been saying, GUT : permanence is the criterion, not writing. Writing is part of permanence, but not all of it.

Yes and no.

Written was ALWAYS the criteria, but it was expanded as technology developed.

And new developments need new assessment.

For example a live broadcast, not recordered, libel or slander.

And I admit nit my area if practice I'm reaching back to dim dark student days, ore TV radio and 'net

[GUT]

Thanks GUT about explaining how more significant permanence is to libel and slander than I realized.

There is a technical thing I can't stand in most television detective shows - due to the way the screen writers are trained by long experience, all these shows end with "mystery solved" within one sixty minute (or less) episode. We all know it more time than that, and even the writers on a good show like Law & Order make us realize days are passing during the discovery-detective work and again in the courtroom maneuvers and clash. But it usually ends within one sixty minute episode. There have been short-lived experiments of a show extended for a full season on one case, but those programs never find a large enough audience.

Part of the problem is attention spans. In the age of the remote control channel surfing, and in terms of the computer the brief bits on many You-Tube videos (although You Tube includes full episodes too) people don't have the stamina to have a long drawn out wait-and-see. The best is a mini-series, like some of the "Miss Marple" or "Hercule Poirot" stories in two episodes (or three sometimes). But even these cut bits out. So one has to seek out a published copy of the story, which enables the reader (if confused on a point) to turn back easily to where the incident involved first occurred and then understand it.

Tied to this is the use of all sorts of questionable detective devices and processes that really have not been developed as the program hints (like super DNA comparison finding from really minimal amounts of material left at the crime scene). DNA was a discovery in the early 1960s, and so we are only within half a century of Watson and Crick's findings. We haven't gotten as far as some of these shows suggest - and probably won't for another half century. And keep in mind, every new discovery used by the police (like fingerprinting) is met with some well-intended skepticism at first. It has to prove itself. Not so on television shows.

Jeff

And I get frustrated when the perp confesses when they've got nothing on him, it's the same reason they have to wrap it up.

Can you imagine if they had to wait say 6 weeks for DNA results instead of slipping a but of litmus paper in a machine and a name pop up there and then.

[Scorpio]

Bad fantasy weaponry never fails to irk me.
Like the LOTR movies:The chief Nazgul swings a morningstar flail that is ridiculously oversized.
Also WW2 movies:Holding the STEN submachinegun by its magazine makes me throw things at the tv set in protest.

[Mayerling]

I have an interesting problem with movie/television fiction: why are some events (especially disasters) always the center of stories while others are rarely noted.

There have been at least ten or twelve "Titanic" movies, or films where it plays a part (like "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" or "Cavalcade"). No major motion picture about the Lusitania was ever made, although there is a classic cartoon by Windsor McKay about the disaster, and it is referred to in many films set in 1915 or so (sometimes with errors - look at the photograph of the ship supposed to be "the Lusitania" on the newspaper being sold in "Yankee Doodle Dandy". It has only two smokestacks.).

The eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii is the subject of several films, as is the San Francisco Earthquake. I believe that in the movie "Forever Amber" the great Fire of London (1666) is shown. But nobody has ever done the Defoe classic "Journal of the Plague Year" about the 1665 bubonic plague that hit London (the fire actually helped end it).

There are plenty of films about the American Civil War, but not much about the War of 1812 - possibly because we did so badly in it (but has Canada made any major film about General Isaac Brock and his major victory (and death) at Queenstown Heights?). Nor has the U.S. really done many films about the Mexican War (possibly for reasons concerning ill feelings still held by our neighbor). The big four movied wars are the American Revolution, the Civil War, the First World War, and the Second World War. After those we have the French and Indian Wars, the Indian-American wars (usually dealing with either the Sioux and Custer, or the Apaches under Geronimo), and Korea. Vietnam (to date) was used for three major films (The Green Berets, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter). We don't like to advertise defeats unless they can be twisted into epic heroism (Hello Custer!!).

We have plenty of films about prohibition and the rise of organized crime.
How many about the "Progressive" Era that preceeded it, or the "Gilded Age" that preceeded that, or the Reconstruction Age that came before all three? Yes, "Gone With The WInd's second half touches into a view (now discredited) about Reconstruction, but what other films were there?

This is just dealing with the U.S. Except for a comment or two about Canada and Mexico above I wonder how much is not dealt with in other countries.

Jeff